


Ocean Eyes

by un_petit_oiseau



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Eventual Romance, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, I couldn't resist the pun, I'm Sorry, Loose Canon, Loss, Personal Growth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, This is definitely an AU in which everyone meets way sooner than in the show, seriously though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:45:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/un_petit_oiseau/pseuds/un_petit_oiseau
Summary: Heroes - are they born or made? Different people might give different answers, but one fact remains: being a hero is not easy, it is not safe, and it is not always a choice.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "I've been watching you  
> For some time  
> Can't stop staring at those ocean eyes  
> Burning cities and napalm skies  
> Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes  
> Your ocean eyes" - Billie Eilish, "Ocean Eyes"

_No sound penetrated the vacuum of space, but even if it had, she wouldn’t have heard it. Strapped in tightly, she couldn’t move, couldn’t turn the pod around. She could only scream, eyes fixed on the reflection of her planet’s destruction in the plasglas of the cockpit. She was alone now. A living witness of the death of an entire culture. She screamed._

Kara bolted out of bed, her throat dry and aching from the effort of remaining silent. Some part of her was obscurely proud that she hadn’t woken Alex this time. The Danvers had been generous to welcome her into their family, but she knew her nightmares were starting to wear on all of them. It was bad enough that she still had trouble controlling her body, but now her mind was rebelling as well. And Alex bore the brunt of it.

Kara knew that Alex resented her. Telepathy may not be one of the strange powers she had developed within days of landing on Earth, thanks to a golden sun that had initially blinded her (it was not the warm, soft, red light of Rao, the color of home), but her enhanced physical senses revealed almost as much as mind-reading might. She had heard the low, angry mutters of Alex’s objections to her presence, to sharing a room and a school and a life. She saw – in frustrating, x-ray flashes – the notes Alex scrawled to her friends and the texts she sent and the eye rolls when she thought Kara couldn’t see. She felt the split second of utter stillness as Alex strove not to flinch away whenever Kara touched her. Alex couldn’t hide anything, so Kara knew everything. That’s why she didn’t want to disturb Alex again. Maybe, if she could just be _normal_ , be _quiet_ , be _human_ , Alex would like her someday, would be part of a new family.

She floated silently over to the window of their room, curling around herself on the wide sill to stare out at the night sky. The stars stared back, the lights of a thousand thousand suns, and Kara could only see the one that was missing. She had had a lot of time to study this part of space while she was in the Phantom Zone, and then when she was miraculously freed from it to complete her journey to Earth. It had been a curious existence, trapped at once in the small pod and in the infinite vastness of time and space, and she had spent most of it reliving the last days of Krypton. Her mind – the trained mind of a budding scientist – was relentless in its perfect recall of her parents’ faces, the hushed panic as Krypton’s destruction changed from probable to definite, and then the deafening loudness as everything tore apart.

She shook as the images rose again in her mind’s eye:

The comforting glow of Rao turned bloody orange streaked with bruise-colored clouds.

The beautiful spires of her city crumbling as the ground shook violently.

Her parents disappearing into liquid flame, left behind while she escaped.

She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt gentle fingers wipe tears away. Startled, she turned to meet worried brown eyes, bleary with sleep and soft with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

Alex didn’t flinch away this time. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I don’t really know what happened to you before you came here, but I-I guess it must’ve been horrible. And I haven’t made it any easier for you, and I’m sorry. Can we start over?”

Kara swallowed and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, the English tumbling strangely off her tongue still, despite her several weeks of practice. “Yes, Al-ex.”

Alex smiled crookedly and extended her hand for Kara to shake. “Hi, I’m Alex. It looks like you’re my new sister. Welcome home.”


	2. Chapter 2

Alex had awoken to a faint whimpering, a deep wound given voice, and for a moment she wasn’t sure where the sound was coming from. She rubbed her eyes and peered through the darkness, finally seeing a huddled shape silhouetted against the window. _Oh. Kara._

Tonight seemed…worse than the other nights. It had been a long three weeks for everyone, especially as Kara’s shock wore off and her powers came in. Alex knew she hadn’t exactly been the world’s greatest welcoming committee, but it’s not like she had ever wanted a sister. On the other hand, she could have at least tried to be nice.

She slid out of bed, Kara’s choked crying tugging at a knot of compassion in her chest, and padded to the window. Reaching out and carefully swiping at a tear, she had to stifle a gasp when Kara turned to look at her. Those big, blue eyes were blank, endless, only hinting at the depths of the pain Kara must be feeling. She felt a lump rise in her own throat and gulped it down with difficulty. She knew she had to try to fix this; maybe Kara needed her to be a sister more than Alex wanted to go back to her old life.

* * *

_Three years later…_

Alex blinked back tears, phone hanging limply in her hand, Vicki’s angry text still on the screen. She had started the fight, she knew that, knew it had to be like this. Now it looked like she had lost a friend. She curled up on her bed, rummaging under the rumpled covers for her battered stuffed dog, Woof. Clutching the threadbare toy to her chest, she cried as silently as possible. She and Kara no longer shared a room, but walls were no match for super-hearing, and Alex just wanted to deal with this alone.

Vicki had been her best friend; they did everything together, talked about almost everything. Being around her had felt good, like a fizz of electricity in her veins, sharp-scented clarity in her mind. Alex was her best self with Vicki. And Vicki, well, Vicki shored her up in her weak places, reassured her whenever Alex’s mom had yelled at her _again_ for not being perfect, for not protecting Kara well enough. But that hadn’t been all, had it? Alex curled more tightly into herself. Vicki hadn’t felt like just a friend anymore, not for a long time. There were the dreams, for one thing; normal people don’t have _those kinds_ of dreams about their friends. Especially not their same-gender friends. _Nope._ Alex flushed in shame, belly roiling, face buried in Woof’s patchy fur. That was why she had started the fight. She couldn’t trust herself to be normal with Vicki anymore.

She couldn’t think about _that_ ever again. _Never_. _That_ would definitely destroy everything, and no one could find out. She would bury it, forget all about it, be normal from now on, if possible. 

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t even hear her door open and shut again; she didn’t realize she was no longer alone until she felt the bed dip behind her. She knew who it was immediately; only Kara would come see what was wrong.

“Alex? What happened?”

“Vicki and I had a fight. We – we’re not friends anymore.” She didn’t look at Kara as she said this, afraid her eyes would give everything away.

Kara didn’t push for anything more; she simply pulled Alex into her lap like she weighed nothing and hugged her while she sobbed.


	3. Chapter 3

After Vicki – Alex refused to even think of it as a break-up, even if it felt like one might, if she had actually been dating someone – her focus was single-minded: get out of Midvale and be someone her mother would be proud of.

She threw herself into her classes; school, especially science and math, had always come easily to her, but now she really tried. Her grades, excellent before, skyrocketed, and she started taking extra courses at the local community college once she blew through the high school curriculum. She tried keeping a low profile at school, but it was hard when the teachers _insisted_ on holding her up as some kind of example to her classmates. Bullying and snide remarks were sporadic, because most people knew she had a mean right hook after one too many people came after Kara for being too weird, but Alex had few friends now. That was fine, though. She had Kara, and she had her studies, and in a year she’d be heading to college anyway. She’d already as good as been admitted to Stanford, after one of her independent research projects on alien biochemistry had been published earlier this month.

Alex was doing exceptional things, except maybe not. Because her mother still only saw her failures. Because Kara was still having trouble being human enough. The moving goalposts only became more confusing after her dad died last year, and that was Alex’s fault, too. She’d let Kara fly her to the sea at night, and they’d been seen. If she’d just been _smarter_ , god, Alex, what were you thinking? Her dad would never have had to work for those people. He’d still be here, with them. Her fault. She’d never make up for that, no matter what. But if she tried hard enough maybe her mom would tell her, just once, that she was doing well, that she was just as good as Kara.

* * *

Kara was worried about Alex. She was really…intense lately, but somehow subdued. Kara knew how deeply Alex felt things; her empathy was Kara’s guiding light when life on Earth was too much, too bright, too fragile. Alex taught her everything: how to stand up for herself, how to make friends. She tutored her in English with patience, teaching her all the vagaries of the language that hadn’t been conveyed by the pod’s language acquisition modules. She showed Kara how to swim, what YouTube was, how to put on eyeliner. She knew when Kara was having a bad day and what she needed to make it better. She even learned some Kryptonian, so that on the worst days Kara would have someone to tell her “I love you, you’re my sister. You’re not alone,” in the language of her home and heart.

Alex was far away right now, though. She’d been accepted to Stanford early, had been away from Midvale for almost two months now. She sounded strange on the phone when they talked on the weekends; her voice was toneless, distant, over-controlled. She deflected Kara’s questions about college life almost constantly, and her reassurances of being “Fine, Kara; I’m fine,” rang hollow and false. Eliza didn’t seem to notice, though, and Kara started to wonder if she was imagining things. She was probably being too sensitive. Alex was probably just tired; college was hard, right? Even for someone as smart as Alex.

So, Kara worked hard, too, worked on learning to live without leaning so hard on her older sister. She wanted to be strong on her own.

The flashbacks had decreased in frequency over the years she’d been with the Danvers, but they had never become less terrifying. Now that Alex wasn’t there to help her through them, Kara turned to other strategies. Human meditation techniques, she discovered, were largely ineffective; her senses, even with the lead-framed glasses she wore, remained too strong, and focusing her mind when the sensations of the world were overwhelming was impossible. Exercise helped, but she had to be careful to only exert herself in places uninhabited by humans, which Eliza’s increasing protectiveness made difficult. No, it turned out that music was the most helpful protection against breaking down when Krypton burned and crumbled behind her eyes.

She joined the school choir, where she learned just how much it meant to be part of a group. There, she was valued for the power and clarity of her voice, and it didn’t matter that she was still awkward Kara Danvers. When she was singing, she could narrow her focus to the rush of air in her lungs, the slow tightening of her diaphragm, the delicate vibrations of her vocal cords, the spreading waves of each note. Music, it seemed to her, was a careful dance of control and surrender. She discovered the wonders of classical vocal music and then choral masterpieces of Earth’s Renaissance. The richness and complexity were immersive: chords upon chords, melodies intertwining to create cathedrals of sound which at once overarched her fragmented thoughts and gave them a foundation on which to rest. So she sang, and she listened, and sometimes she even wrote her own music, which wove her knowledge of human music and her memories of Kryptonian songs together. And slowly, it seemed, she healed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you are all enjoying this story so far. It looks like this is going to get pretty long, and while I have some ideas about how things will unfold for all four of our characters, I always welcome prompts/ideas/suggestions. I know it's been pretty Alex and Kara heavy so far, but Maggie and Lena will be making an appearance soon, I promise!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Maggie. None of this is much happier than the first chapters were. You've been warned.

Maggie slumped nervously against the lockers, absentmindedly rubbing her damp palms along her thighs. The bell for the end of the day had just rung – not a moment too soon – and she couldn’t wait to get out of the building. But she was waiting for Eliza so they could ride the bus home together. _Where the hell is she? She had a freaking free period this afternoon, so what’s taking so long?_ Maggie kept her head down, willing herself invisible in the usual end-of-day tumult at Southern High. Her freshman year so far had been pretty rocky, and today had been…rougher than usual. Josh Pickton had cornered her at lunch again, and all his stupid friends managed to block the teachers’ view while he tried to grope and kiss her.

Thank goodness she wasn’t afraid to fight back, although she knew that the time would probably come when it didn’t matter how sharp her nails, teeth, and elbows were. Most of the girls and all of the boys were already bigger than she was, and it didn’t look like that would ever change. She wished she knew why _she_ was Josh’s favorite target, though. Karen Abbott and Brittany Green were both prettier, and it wasn’t like Maggie was some kind of super-nerd or whatever. In any case, though, Maggie was apparently the chosen prey for the school’s most popular crowd, and it sucked.

Eliza was her only friend; they were both from Blue Springs, had grown up together, lived a few blocks from each other. Best friends since forever, basically. Maggie found herself clinging even more tightly to Eliza lately, given her apparent inability to be accepted by the rest of her peers. Eliza didn’t seem to mind, either; in fact, she was more often than not the one who initiated plans after school and on the weekends. There wasn’t a ton to do in Blue Springs, but watching movies and eating junk food was always fun, and that was supposed to be the plan this evening; it was gonna be the perfect Friday night. _If Eliza would just show up already!_

Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was really only about ten minutes, Maggie heard her friend’s slightly breathless voice in her ear.

“Hey! Sorry, Mags, Ms. Wycek wanted to talk to me about my English paper during my free period, and I didn’t think it would take so long! She’s nice and all, but whew!”

Maggie’s irritation melted away as she looked up at the taller girl. “How much of that discussion was really about your paper, Lize? Did she get distracted by John Donne again?”

“You guessed it!” Eliza smirked slightly. “Gimme a sec to get my stuff, then we can head to the bus?”

“Sounds good.”

Maggie fiddled with her backpack straps while she waited for Eliza to finish packing up. Now that she wasn’t alone in the middle of the crowd she felt slightly safer, if still wound up. She jumped slightly when Eliza slammed her locker door shut, but then relaxed when the other girl linked arms with her.

“Let’s go!” Elisa practically dragged her in the direction of the bus stop, and Maggie couldn’t hold back her smile as Elisa chattered about what they’d do once they were dropped off at her house.

* * *

Six hours into their rom-com marathon later that night, both girls - stuffed full of pizza, popcorn, and candy - were tangled up in blankets on the couch in the basement. Onscreen, Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney were flirting outrageously with each other, but Maggie was having trouble focusing on the movie right then. Eliza had wriggled around so that her head was in Maggie’s lap. This wasn’t unusual; Eliza was pretty tactile in general, but for some reason this felt a little different to Maggie. Maybe she was just being weird, though. With an effort, she turned her attention back to the movie and ignored the quivery feeling in her stomach whenever Eliza shifted.

But, watching the movie wasn’t as helpful as she hoped. Maggie couldn’t help thinking about how pretty Catherine Zeta-Jones was. And, when her character kissed Clooney’s, she felt an electric spark shoot down her spine. She had never kissed anyone, but if she did, she’d want it to be someone as pretty as that. But it would have to be someone she really cared about, and someone who cared about her, too. When she realized what track her thoughts were taking, she felt her stomach lurch and her whole body stiffen. Eliza, who had obviously felt that movement, half-turned over to look up at her in the dim glow of the TV.

“What’s up? You okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Just, uh, just a cramp. It’s fine now.”

Eliza laid back down on Maggie’s lap and curled herself more snugly in a blanket. Maggie was glad that the low light hid most of her face; she could feel it burning. Did she – did she have a _crush_ on Eliza? Did that mean she was a lesbian? Was that why Josh and his crowd were always on her back; could they somehow see that she was _different_ in a more than skin-deep way? What was she going to do?

She spent the rest of the movie trapped in her racing thoughts, examining every last memory she had of the time she and Eliza spent together. She didn’t even notice when the closing credits started rolling. It was only when the DVD menu popped back up that Maggie snapped back to the present. By this time, it seemed like Eliza had fallen asleep, so Maggie fumbled for the remote and turned the TV off. Then, she sat in the dark until she, too, drifted to sleep, into dim, confusing dreams of soft lips and raucous laughter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Maggie. It gets worse before it gets better; I'm so sorry.

It was one of the rare days that Maggie was home alone after school; her parents wouldn’t be home until late, according to the note her mom left on the fridge, so she had the house to herself for a little while. That was good; she had some things to figure out.

It had been a few days since movie night with Eliza, and Maggie couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not in a friend way, but in a girlfriend way. Or, maybe not? It was all a little confusing. Maybe it was totally normal to want to kiss your friends? Who knew? It’s not like she was gonna ask anybody about that though; she’s not an idiot, she’d heard the way some people talked about _that_.

Rubbing her hands together nervously, she nodded sharply to herself, mind made up. _Time to ask the internet_.

She went upstairs to her room and made sure to leave the door cracked; she didn’t want to get caught looking up some of this stuff on the computer. Blue Springs might be tiny, but at least her dad’s job meant that they had a dedicated internet connection, and she had just gotten her own computer for Christmas. Thanking the universe that her parents had no idea about parental controls or tracking her internet usage, she logged in and navigated to Wikipedia. Feeling nervous, she slowly typed “I think I’m a lesbian” into the search bar and waited for the results to load.

She clicked on the first article, which looked fairly comprehensive, and began to read.

* * *

 

The whole school was buzzing as the students counted down to Valentine’s Day. It was on a Saturday this year, so Maggie had had all week to decide how she wanted to ask Eliza out. There was no “if” about it; her internet research had given her some certainty, and she had thought long and hard about whether Eliza maybe liked her back. She figured that, even if Eliza said no, it would be ok. They’d been best friends since forever, after all, and that kind of friendship could handle a little awkwardness.

In any case, she’d determined that a letter would be the best way to do this whole thing. She’d spent the whole night writing and rewriting until it was perfect – until the words were just right and her handwriting was as neat as she could make it. Now, it was lunchtime on Friday, and Maggie was ready to slip it into Eliza’s locker. Eliza had some kind of club meeting right now, so she wouldn’t catch Maggie, but she would see the note before the end of the day. Hopefully, after Maggie’s last class Eliza would come find her like she usually did, and then…

Maggie shook her head slightly, refusing to think too far ahead, and, looking around furtively, slid the folded note into the vents on Eliza’s locker door. With another quick glance around, she scooted down the hallway and ducked into the library. She’d be safe from the troublemakers in there, and Mrs. Fuller, the librarian, didn’t mind having students hang out as long as they were quiet.

* * *

It was 3:25 and Eliza still hadn’t shown up at their usual meeting spot by the lockers. The bus would be leaving soon. Maggie’s stomach clenched; this wasn’t like Eliza; she usually got to her locker around 3:10, maybe 3:15. Maggie watched the second hand on the clock tick. One minute passed, then another. At 3:28, Maggie gave up on waiting. If she missed this bus, she’d have to call her mom to get a ride, which always meant a lecture about being punctual. She ran to the stop, jumping on scant seconds before the driver closed the doors. Without Eliza, Maggie scrunched herself in her seat as much as possible, staying still and silent the whole ride to her house, trying not to worry about Eliza.

When she opened the front door, she was greeted with stony faces and a suitcase. Her suitcase. Her parents were standing behind it. Her dad was holding something. The note. The note she left for Eliza, so carefully folded, now wrinkled from her father’s tight grip. Her mouth went bone dry and her heart started pounding so hard she thought she might die right there. She couldn’t move, knew she couldn’t speak no matter how hard she tried. When she didn’t even open her mouth, her father finally spoke.

“You are never welcome in this house again. Get your suitcase and get out.”

Numbly, she grabbed the handle of the small bag, turned around, and walked out the door. She kept walking for a long time, not knowing where she was going, just knowing that she had to go _away_.

After what could have been minutes, days, or hours, she was startled by a car pulling up beside her.

“Maggie, _cari_ _ñ_ _o_ , get in.”

She stopped, turned and stared blindly in the direction of the voice. Everything was blurry; she realized she had been crying. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her eyes, trying to place the voice. The car’s engine stopped, and she heard the driver’s door open. She still hadn’t moved.

Soft footfalls helped her track the person’s approach, until a woman, a few inches taller than Maggie, stood in front of her.

“Maggie. It’s Isabela. Do you remember me? I’ve come to get you; you’ll stay with me, ok?”

The pieces fell into place as she stared into a face that seemed so familiar. It was her mother’s sister, the one they never talked about. She nodded.

Isabela gently unwrapped Maggie’s cramped fingers from the handle of her suitcase and put it in the trunk of the car. Then, she opened the passenger side door for Maggie, helping her settle in, buckling her seatbelt for her. Maggie let her, staring fixedly ahead, allowing her limbs to be repositioned as if she were a doll, or a puppet. She felt empty enough to be one.

They drove in silence for a long time. It was dark. The road was empty except for them. Isabela didn’t speak, and neither did Maggie. Finally, they pulled into a driveway and Isabela turned off the ignition.

Maggie blinked, and somehow she was inside, sitting at a small table. The room was bathed in a soft, yellow glow. She blinked again and Isabela was putting a plate of food in front of her. It smelled delicious and tasted like ash. She managed two bites before her throat closed and her stomach turned. She felt dizzy, sick. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was in the dark, in a bed that wasn’t hers, covered with blankets that smelled of lavender. She squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed that she’d never open them again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's story begins. Growing up is hard enough without Lillian as your stepmother.

Lena looked up at the two tall adults flanking her, who talked over her head in sharp whispers. The lady sounded angry, her voice like a chilled knife, but her face was a mask. The man was louder, brow furrowed, the hand that wasn’t resting heavily on Lena’s head punctuating his words with sharp jabs. They both scared her. She didn’t know why she had come with the man in the fancy car or why her mommy wasn’t there with her. It was dark, after bedtime, but she wasn’t sleepy at all.

She stood and clutched her teddy, the sibilant argument above sliding past her ears as she looked around the room. There was another person there, she saw, a boy. He was older than her, and tall, but he had a nice face, nicer than the lady’s, even though he looked a lot like her. He beckoned her over to the chess board, and she sat across from him in the seat the lady left when she came in. She knew about chess, and that small flicker of familiarity was enough to let her hope that everything would be okay.

 

It was not okay. Lena was ten now. She had been living with the Luthors for six years, and sometimes she wished she could go home. But she had learned early on why she was there: her real mom was dead, and she had to stay with the Luthors now. She didn’t really understand why, since she knew Lillian didn’t like her. Only Lex liked her now. She didn’t have friends, really. Lillian didn’t let her meet other children much; she said it wasn’t proper for a Luthor to be too friendly. Plus, she was the youngest in her class by at least four years, and no one wanted to be friends with a baby like her.

Lena’s life was a constant series of heavier and heavier limits. Lionel had offered a strange sort of protection while he was alive, but he had died a year ago. She hadn’t known what to feel at the time. Before his funeral, Lillian had hissed furiously at her that she was to behave during the ceremony. No talking, no smiling, and no crying. Lena had just nodded. That day had been endless, a sea of black-clad adults who smelled like money and walked like they owned the world paraded past, offering words that even Lena knew were full of false sympathy. Lillian accepted them all with a gracious nod, her face carefully arranged into an expression of gentle bereavement, her hands on Lex’s shoulders. Lex had held Lena’s hand. Later, he invited her, for the first time, to help him with his experiments.

Solving problems with Lex was a wonderful relief from Lillian’s constant directives and half-veiled insults. Lex was kind when he found a weakness in Lena’s constructions or an error in her calculations. He always helped her find the right answers, whereas Lena constantly flailed to satisfy Lillian.

She had quickly learned to hide her feelings behind a pleasant mask after Lillian had ridiculed her for crying when she found out her mother was dead. It wasn’t as good as Lex’s yet, but it was getting easier every day to not react to Lillian’s subtle jabs or her classmates’ more obvious nastiness. She threw herself into Lex’s projects and her own education; they were the most likely escape routes from Lillian’s control, especially since she knew that Lex would be taking over LutherCorp soon. Then, he’d be in charge, and maybe he could help her avoid Lillian even more.

At fifteen, she started college. Her work with Lex, who had assumed control of LutherCorp just a year before, as well as the Luthor name (and family money), ensured that she had a place at any school she wanted. She chose MIT; it was far enough from Metropolis that even Lillian couldn’t constantly keep tabs on her, and their engineering programs were top-notch. Away from Lillian’s watchful glare and sharp tongue, she thrived. She threw herself into her courses, devouring calculus, statistics, chemistry, physics, and biomedical engineering in great gulps, as if no amount of knowledge could ever sate her. There, she could just be Lena, not a Luthor, if only for a few minutes.   
  
She found more and more reasons to avoid going home over breaks. She became a TA, then an RA, for the head of her department, and when she graduated in 2012, Dr. Paijhat offered her a place in his lab as a graduate student. She said yes, of course. Why leave the only place she’d been happy since she was four years old?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we get some back story for Lena! From here on out, these four different stories will start intertwining a little more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day National City stood still - how did Lex Luthor's master plan to eliminate Superman affect all four of our main characters?

The television blared into the unusual silence of the dive bar where Lena and her lab mates had gone for greasy fries and questionable whisky.

“...737 confirmed dead, and at least 400 injured. Authorities expect the death toll to continue rising as the night goes on. The cause of this disaster is still unconfirmed, but we have received information from an anonymous source that the earthquake’s epicenter is at LutherCorp’s facility outside of National City. Lex Luthor, CEO of LuthorCorp, was spotted there moments before the quake began after saying, and I quote, ‘He won’t know what hit him. This is the end of Superman.’ We will update you as the situation develops.”

The camera cut from the polished newscaster to scenes of utter destruction. Buildings leveled, dust and the smoke from scattered fires casting a nightmarish haze over National City. Sirens, alarms, and screaming filtered faintly through the thumpthumpthump of the news-copter’s rotors and the rustling wind.

Lena’s hand was wet. She felt someone – Jack – gently remove the now-empty shot glass from her grip. She supposed she had made a mess of the table, but it didn’t matter. She had to go.

She stood woodenly, her gaze sweeping blindly around the table, unable to register the expressions on the faces of her friend. Ex-friends? Her head was spinning, her only thought was the terrible, drumming, repetition of _Luthor, Luthor, Luthor_. Lena fled.

* * *

 

“Cooper, Sung, Hidori, and Reyes, clear the main building, check for survivors! Full hazmat gear and _be careful_ – we have no idea what Luthor had stored in here. Vasquez, I need you and your team to monitor the area, and see if you can hack into the security system. We need to find out what happened and what else is wired to blow. I’ve hooked a DEO laptop into one of the auxiliary security stations, but I can’t get past the firewall. I’m taking the rest of the team straight to the hangar. If Luthor’s anywhere, he’s probably there. Everyone, keep your comms on at all times!”

Alex’s throat hurt from her furious whispers and the sheer amount of smoke and dust in the air. She could hardly see the other agents surrounding the LutherCorp warehouse through the haze, although she knew they were there. Word had come from on high that Superman was still alive, but she had no idea what that meant for the immediate situation – was he injured? How badly? Could he still fight? The Man of Steel himself was not eager to collaborate with the DEO, and the limited information was causing Alex’s muscles to knot with tension. She had to keep her team safe, but without all the data, that was a herculean task.

She motioned to her colleagues and adjusted her grip on both her flashlight and her weapon. They moved out, bodies low, eyes constantly sweeping the area, alert for any unexpected noise or movement. As the four agents she’d assigned to the main facility broke away, she sent a silent wish to the universe that they’d come back safely, then she refocused on her task.

She and the agents she was taking to the hangar – Patillo, Li, and Goudet – sprinted to the edge of the imposing building and slunk along the wall towards the doors. She crouched slightly and peeked into the interior of the hangar, trying to get a good look at the space immediately beyond the threshold. Nothing, no movement that she could see, although the dark shapes that hulked throughout cast strange, flickering shadows thanks to the flames outside.

She motioned behind her and, in a practiced maneuver, Patillo and Goudet paced lightly into the hangar, and she and Li followed behind. They all faced a slightly different direction, weapons at the ready, flashlights sweeping through the darkness. A sudden clatter startled them all. They turned as one toward the noise. Lex Luthor emerged from a particularly deep shadow, a small, slim object clutched in his fist. He was smiling, and Alex felt her stomach clench.

“So, you found me. What division are you? I don’t recognize your uniforms. Ah, well, in a few more moments, it won’t matter.”

He pressed a button on the device he held and the hanger doors shut with a deafening bang. They were trapped. Alex’s mind whirred, and she fought against the fear welling inside her. None of her team spoke. Luthor looked slightly disappointed at their silence, then waved his unencumbered hand negligently.

“You see, the moment you stepped inside this hangar, you armed a series of explosives. They’re _highly_ destructive and attuned to my biorhythms. If you kill me, they go off. If I let go of this remote, even for a fraction of a second, they go off. Once I’m safely out of range of National City, however, they’ll automatically disarm, and you can all go home to your families today.”

Alex felt rage sweep aside the fear. Luthor thought he had them, but he was wrong. She exchanged a quick glance with the rest of her team; they were all on the same page. Luthor was not going to get away.

Vasquez’s voice rasped through Alex’s earpiece. “Do what ya gotta do, Danvers.”

Good, Vasquez could hear what was going on. Alex knew she could count on her to stay on til the very end, to report what happened accurately, to find a way to tell her family afterwards.

Luthor seemed to register the renewed, deadly determination of the agents, and chuckled.

“Oh, did you think I meant that there were only explosives in here, in this building? That would be short-sighted of me. No, you should know that every LutherCorp device I’ve sold in the last year is also rigged to explode. They’re everywhere – in schools, in hospitals, in airports, in malls, in people’s homes.”

Agent Li, standing next to Alex, trembled slightly, the only reaction her well-trained muscles betrayed. The blood drained from Alex’s face, and she was thankful for the dark face shield on her tactical helmet.

“Should I prove it? I think so.” He punched what looked like a key code into the small remote.

Alex’s earpiece crackled to life, Vasquez’s panicked voice filling her ear.

“Danvers, the National City VA Hospital’s new wing just -”

“Copy that,” Alex interrupted Vasquez, throat thick with tears and fury.

“Believe me now?”

Alex nodded once, jerkily, and lowered her weapon slowly, placing it gently on the floor. The other agents followed suit, and Alex felt moisture gather in her eyes, blurring her vision. They were done; the potential loss of life was too high, and there was no way to prevent it, not when every LuthorCorp product brought death.

* * *

 

Siren blaring, Maggie’s NCPD vehicle edged slowly down the street. She cursed under her breath as civilians and debris choked the road, but there was nothing to do but be patient. Every emergency responder, on or off duty, was preoccupied with the continuing chaos of the city. The unexpected explosion at the VA Hospital had stretched that thin line of helpers to its breaking point, and Maggie prayed to a God she no longer really believed in that there hadn’t been too many more casualties. She was exhausted and fighting to stay collected and effective. There was no time to regroup, no time to process, everyone had to go, go, go. Too many people still needed help.

She finally reached a clearer stretch of road and stomped on the accelerator. She had to get to the LuthorCorp warehouse, ground zero for this disaster. It was all hands on deck there; the very first officers to arrive after the initial explosion and earthquake had found a lot of dead aliens as well as some lethal-looking alien tech. National City was home to a diverse population, but something about the scene seemed off, as if the presence of non-human bodies was a message. Or maybe a distraction.

In any case, it was Maggie’s job to figure it out, and she had to get samples, check for witnesses, investigate the scene before the news got wind of it. It would be too easy to pin the blame for some – or all – of the human casualties on hostile aliens, even with Luthor’s alleged statement that the disaster was his doing, to kill Superman. You could always count on the bigots to twist the truth around; no sense in giving them more material to work with.

She arrived at the facility. It was enormous and mostly aflame, the acrid smoke causing her to choke until she hurriedly pulled on the compact, department-issued gas mask stored in the car’s glove box. Her vehicle wasn’t the only one there; the grounds were swarming with cars and SUVs and even tanks from too many agencies – local, state, and federal – to name. She flicked on her radio – no cell service. Even if most of the towers hadn’t been destroyed, they weren’t able to handle the volume of calls as people tried frantically to reach loved ones.

“Dispatch, this is Detective Sawyer. Where’s my scene? Place is crawling with feds.”

“Main building, Sawyer, basement. Good luck; Kramer’s trying to hold the feds off til you get there.”

“10-4.”

Maggie grabbed her kit from the passenger seat and sprinted toward the main building. Time to get some answers. She was almost inside when a sound so overwhelming, so utterly outside of human comprehension, shattered the world, and everything went black.

* * *

 

Kara was frozen at her desk. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screens in Cat Grant’s office, all showing various shots of destruction, death, suffering. Every scene was crystal clear, and try as she might she couldn’t ignore the echoing screams that filtered up from the city around her. You didn’t need super-senses to hear that, not today.

She found her eyes drawn most to the screen showing what was happening at the LutherCorp facility. It was too hard to focus on what the reporter whose voice overlaid the video was saying, so she didn’t try, instead taking in every detail of the scene. Which is why she noticed the red and blue streak a full second before anyone else. It was traveling quickly, headed straight toward the domed building – a hangar? - behind the main building, and the noise was incredible. A ground-shaking roar as it approached, and then the wrenching, screaming, tearing sound of the metal roof being breached. It was Kal, or, rather, _Superman_.

Kara felt some part of her unclench. He was alive, apparently unhurt, despite Lex’s plan to kill him this time. She watched closely; Superman entered and left the building once, his super-speed rendering him invisible to human eyes, but Kara noted the dark, humanoid shapes that suddenly appeared outside the hangar’s walls. He swooped back in and then she saw him streak away again, holding someone else – grappling with them in midair, retreating farther and farther from the city.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Lex Luthor's plot to destroy Superman and National City, our four protagonists' stories begin to weave themselves together. This chapter takes place in the days immediately following the disaster.

“...can...me? Sawyer...Sawyer...Maggie!” Sound filtered fuzzily into her ears. Everything sounded so far away, a high-pitched buzzing sound making it hard to hear anything clearly. Someone was talking. Talking to her? Probably, since they keep saying her name. She opened her eyes, squinting immediately at the glaring light directly above her face. _Fuck_ , her face hurt, wait, scratch that, her whole body hurt. The sting of disinfectant tickled her nose. Shit, the hospital, she hated hospitals. She groaned, her eyes slowly adjusting to see the face of her captain hovering over her own. Callahan looked like hell.

“Captain, you look like hell,” she rasped and tried to smirk, but quickly abandoned the attempt as much too painful.

“Yeah, yeah, check the mirror sometime, Sawyer. No beauty pageants for you for a while.”

Maggie snorted a laugh but stifled it when she really registered Callahan’s expression.

“What happened? There was a huge noise and then I guess I blacked out.”

“Luthor triggered a self-destruct of his lab before Superman caught him and got him away from National City. You were blown back by the explosion. No one else made it out.”

She felt like she’d been punched in the gut, like there was a weight on her chest that kept getting heavier and heavier, crushing her lungs. Some kind of alarm was going off, a shrieking wail, and suddenly a blue-clad nurse was shoving Callahan aside and pressing an oxygen mask to her face.

She gasped and gasped like she was running a race, but she couldn’t even move. The faces of her team swam in her mind’s eye: Valdez, her partner, his precise, by-the-book investigation style balanced by the wicked spark of humor in his eyes. Shimada, with her steady hands, the most meticulous of them all at gathering evidence. Park, who had an uncanny ability to gain the trust of the alien community, an invaluable resource when cops were even more distrusted among non-humans than humans. Kramer, lots of bark and a decent bite, and most of all, intense pride in the job. All gone. She should have been with them, should have been dead alongside them. Would have been, if she hadn’t gotten stuck downtown.

Finally, finally she caught her breath and swallowed down the tears that threatened to spill. Callahan was still there; he needed her to be strong right now. He was a good captain, and she didn’t want him to have to bear the burden of comforting her along with his own grief. She caught his eyes.

“What about Luthor? He still alive?” She hoped so. She wanted revenge.

“Yep. He’s in Arkham now, under constant supervision, thanks to Superman. Trial’s set to start in four days - the 14th.”

She nodded sharply. “Okay. I want to be there.”

Callahan looked like he might object for a second, but one look at her set jaw and he changed his mind. “Of course, Sawyer. The docs want to keep you here for a few days, but once they’ve cleared you, you can go home. Your building only took some superficial damage. You’re off duty for the next week, and then I want you to see a shrink. Doesn’t have to be ours, just someone. You get psych clearance, you’re back on regular duty.”

“Yes, Captain.” She was no stranger to psychologists; she knew all the right things to say. She’d be back on duty in two weeks, tops.

* * *

 

“Alex? What’s wrong? Was there some kind of accident in the lab? You’re limping.” Kara squinted suspiciously at Alex, that little crinkle between her brows betraying her worry. She resisted her impulse to use her x-ray vision; Alex hated when she did that.

“I’m fine, Kara. Yeah, the earthquake threw off a very delicate experiment. It was only a small explosion, no big deal.” Alex cringed internally as she lied to Kara. Two and a half years of keeping her real work a secret meant that she was very, very good at deception, but the guilt of doing so was still as sharp as ever.

“Uh, Alex, I’m pretty sure that _any_ size explosion is kind of a big deal? You’re not exactly invulnerable.” Kara tried to make it sound like a joke, but she was pretty sure that it fell flat. Alex was her sister, and her best friend. She didn’t like seeing her hurt, and she felt that, lately, Alex had been hiding something from her. Alex was like that, always protecting Kara, even though Kara was the one with bulletproof skin and steel-strong bones. Sometimes, Kara just wanted to take care of Alex, to tell her that it was okay to be a little _human_ every once in a while.

“ _Kara_ , it’s _fine_. I’m just a little bruised; it’s nothing a little rest and some ice won’t help. Can we _please_ just order the pizza now? I’m starving!” As if on cue, Alex’s stomach grumbled loudly, and she slapped her hand over it dramatically.

“Okay, yeah,” Kara giggled, worry dissipating. “Can we get four this time? I had such a long day. Ms. Grant had me running all over the city; major disasters make her picky, you know.” She wrinkled her nose, grinning widely. Persnickety described Cat Grant on a good day; on the days surrounding a huge news story, she was almost impossible. Kara loved it – it distracted her from her own anxieties when there were people getting hurt. She always felt like she should be helping, somehow, although Alex and Eliza were always insisting that she stay safe and out of danger.

“Right, ‘cuz she’s so easy to deal with the rest of the time,” Alex snarked.

Kara pouted and opened her mouth to defend her boss, but Alex forestalled what was going to be a very passionate interjection. “And sure, let’s get four. I want one double pepperoni. You can pick the other three; just make sure that at least one of them doesn’t have olives, ‘kay? I’m gonna go take a quick shower and change.” She didn’t wait for Kara to agree; it was their normal routine, after all.

***

Sleepy-eyed and with a full belly, Alex waved goodbye to Kara from her apartment door. She was exhausted. While Kara had been trying to appease her tetchy boss, Alex had been bounced from one meeting to another as the DEO tried to put out literal and metaphorical fires in the wake of Lex Luthor’s devastating attacks on National City. She had also had to inform next-of-kin of casualties, an excruciating task – one she dreaded after every major op. She worked so hard to keep her agents safe, but on days like yesterday, that hard work was like trying to dam a river with a splinter.

The death toll had been high. Too many would not be returning to work ever again, and others were facing a hard, painful road. Nearly all of the survivors would bear the marks of the previous day’s tragedy until they died. Alex knew she would be one of them, even if her scars were mostly psychological this time. Hank had told her before she left that she was off-duty for the next week, and he had, uh, _strongly encouraged_ her to see the one of the DEO counselors before coming back. She was pretty sure that she could handle it on her own, though. She’d done it before. A nice bottle of whiskey, some trashy Netflix, and sleep – that’s all she needed.

Mostly, she just wanted to forget her adrenaline-fueled clarity in the time immediately after Superman’s arrival at the LutherCorp hangar. She had been first disoriented, then terrified, then angry at finding herself and her three team members outside the hangar, watching Superman carry Lex Luthor up and away from National City. Then, the concussive force of the main building exploding had flattened everyone within 100 feet, only their DEO-issued body armor saving Alex and her colleagues from injuries more serious than some deep bruising. She hadn’t known for hours whether the agents she had sent in had survived, but one look at Hank’s face while she was getting checked out in the medical bay had told her everything she needed to know. One more thing to add to the list of all the ways she had failed. One more reason to drink until her face was numb and her memories hazy. One more reason that Kara could _never, ever_ know what she really did for a living.

* * *

 

Lena was only half-listening to her mother’s cold voice as she paced back and forth in the study at the Luthor estate. It hadn’t been redecorated after Lionel’s death, and the whole room seemed to breathe his presence. Heavy, darkly-stained, oversized wooden furniture crouched in the dim, yellow light, for all the world like a pack of wolves surrounding the two women, waiting to pounce if either of them made the wrong move.

“ _Lena_ , are you listening?” Lillian’s tone had sharpened even more, demanding a real response from Lena. Lena stopped moving and turned to face her mother, who was standing behind the enormous desk.

Lillian continued speaking without waiting for Lena’s response. “You will have to take over LuthorCorp now. We can’t let Lex’s...indiscretions hurt the company. Your father worked too hard to build this company to let it fail now.”

Lena fought to keep her face impassive and her voice even, angry words clawing at her throat as her eyes pricked with tears. Once she was sure she could maintain a dispassionate tone, she spoke. “Of course, Mother.”

Lillian quirked her lips in a satisfied smirk. “I expect you to continue R&D on the products Lex was working on. No reason to let them go to waste. And you will need to hold a press conference as soon as possible. We need to do damage control, to make sure we don’t lose consumer loyalty due to Lex’s recklessness. Use your discretion; just make sure that the Luthor name is not irrevocably tarnished. This kind of notoriety will interfere with my long-term plans.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, get going. You have a lot to do. Lex’s trial starts tomorrow, and everyone will be watching. Don’t give the media any more reason to dig into our family business.”

Lena nodded and turned to leave, getting almost to the door before Lillian’s voice rang out again.

“Oh, and Lena? You’re the face of the Luthor family now. Try not to embarrass us.”

Lena didn’t bother replying. The door shut soundlessly behind her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm in Vancouver for a few days, so I figured it would be the perfect time to get some more of this fic written and posted! I hope to have another chapter out after this one, so stay tuned!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More disaster aftermath. Yikes.

There was so much to do before the trial started. The Luthors had always been good media fodder: wealthy, brilliant, attractive people always were, and LuthorCorp’s position as a company on the bleeding edge of biotech only provided more of a draw. Lena pressed her fingertips into her forehead, kneading gently to forestall the headache she could feel lurking behind her eyes. It was past midnight already. She clearly wouldn’t be going home tonight.

Her PhD, as well as the projects she had done with Lex, had prepared her well for understanding the intricacies of LuthorCorp’s latest products and research. Growing up a Luthor meant that she was well-versed in the importance of good PR and a strong business plan. But it would take all of her knowledge and a good deal of smooth talking to make sure the company survived Lex’s inevitable conviction as a mass murderer. Her mother’s last words the other night bounced around in her skull like bullets: “Try not to embarrass us.” Yes, that was her, the family embarrassment: the walking, talking evidence of Lionel’s extramarital activities.

Her head was pounding. The reports piled on her desk didn’t help matters. It was clear to her that Lex had been descending into ever-more-violent xenophobia for a long time, based on the products currently in development. None of the most blatantly anti-alien had been released yet – Lex had apparently retained at least that much discretion. But the reports showed the whole story, a series of increasingly unethical experiments on non-humans and metahumans, technology designed to reveal secrets and control individuals, either through complex biotechnological means or...cruder methods, like pain and fear. Even worse, she knew Lillian was also behind some of this work. Her particular brand of subtle cruelty infiltrated each idea, as distinct and nauseating as the scent of decay.

Lena poured herself two fingers of expensive bourbon from the discreet liquor cabinet by the desk and set to work. It wouldn’t help the headache, but she sorely needed the slight fuzziness it would impart to the rest of the evening.

***

When dawn streaked pink and gold across the horizon, Lena sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh. She had been through every report, every project currently in development or released to the public. LuthorCorp’s financials were generally in good order – at least someone had held Lex back from any devastating mistakes on that front. Lena suspected that they’d need every penny in the “slush fund” in order to make reparations to Lex’s victims and their loved ones, whether those payments were court-ordered or not. It would be a delicate dance: how best to admit LuthorCorp’s complicity in Lex’s crimes while maintaining that LuthorCorp and Lex were not one and the same? It had taken her until the very darkest hours of the morning to come up with a strategy that she hoped would work. She would re-brand LuthorCorp completely, publicly revamping its image and privately redirecting its goals. Even in the most dangerous projects Lena could see some positive possibilities, and she was determined to prove that the youngest Luthor could make up for the sins of her elders.

***

She did not go to Lex’s trial. It was too hard to reconcile his horrific acts with her memories of his kindness when she was a child. She tried to go, that first day, but no sooner had she reached for the door out of her apartment than the world seemed to tilt sharply. Then, she was on the floor, slumped against the wall, fingers scrabbling over the fine grain of the door. Her lungs felt heavy and stiff and her head pounded, pounded, pounded, her vision pulsing in and out of focus to the beat of her thumping heart. Slowly, so slowly, she crawled to the living room. Standing up again was out of the question, not in the heels she was wearing, not with the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her.

It took hours to gather enough strength to get off the floor. She could hear her phone buzzing with calls and notifications, but she didn’t even reach for it. It wasn’t important. The Lex she knew was gone, really gone, and she had no one. No friends, no family. No one really cared about Lena anymore; if anyone ever had, the Luthor name had ruined that, too, now.

* * *

 

The man sitting in court was not immediately recognizable as the handsome, charming, billionaire that the world was accustomed to seeing. Lex Luthor hadn’t escaped harm during the events he’d set off a mere week ago, and Maggie felt her stomach clench with a sort of dark satisfaction. Lex’s once-thick, curly hair was gone, burned off in the explosion he caused, and the parts of his head that remained unbandaged were red and swollen. Maggie bet that even the best plastic surgeons in the world would not be able to restore his good looks. Now the outside matched the inside, she supposed – irreparably damaged. _Karma’s a bitch_ , some part of Maggie’s mind sniggered.

Maggie herself was still recovering, the stitches on her scalp itching, her left arm in a sling, the scorched skin on her hands and face still shinily tender. But nothing would have kept her from the courtroom that day, or any day of Lex Luthor’s trial. She wouldn’t testify, not directly, but she felt the eyes on her, lingering on her NCPD uniform, on her injuries, on the black armband she wore for fallen, fellow officers. She ignored them all, staring poison, grief, and rage into the face of a monster, and she felt a surge of triumph that his eyes dropped first.

The actual trial was a blur. Both sides presented their testimony over the course of a week. Luthor’s attorney – a sleek, smooth-talking white man in a suit that cost more than Maggie’s motorcycle – did his best, trying to paint his client as a troubled young man who was suffering from a mental break. Unfortunately for him, the evidence against Luthor was overwhelming. The prosecutor called witness after witness, presented expert after expert, showed photo after photo. All the money in the world wouldn’t save Luthor from a life sentence. At the sentencing, in lieu of a victim impact statement, the mayor of National City simply read a list of all those who had been identified as dead or injured as a result of Luthor’s actions. It took almost three-quarters of an hour. Maggie clenched her jaw and refused to cry when the judge sentenced Luthor to life in Arkham Asylum; she resolved with every fiber of her being that she would never let something like this happen again, not in her city. And she would be strong for those she had lost. Tears wouldn’t bring them back, and letting her feelings rule wouldn’t help her protect all of National City’s residents, alien or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if y'all like this, I'd love to hear about it, either with kudos or comments. Even something like a smiley face would be amazing. This fic is definitely gonna be the longest I've ever written (not that I've written a lot), and I would dearly appreciate some encouragement while I untangle all of my ideas for how the story will progress.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Kara's worlds collide again, and Alex is intrigued by what she saw at Lex Luthor's trial.

Alex was relieved that the Luthor trial was over. She’d spent a week either in the courtroom or back at the DEO. Her first assignment now that she was back at work was to monitor the people in the courtroom and research anyone who didn’t seem to fit. The higher-ups had reason to believe that Luthor hadn’t acted entirely alone, and they wanted to try to head off more anti-Superman and anti-alien incidents in the city. In any case, the courtroom had been packed every day with families, friends, loved ones of the victims, as well as the usual contingent of people who were simply curious to see what a real life monster looked like. There were a few names that had pinged as possible accomplices to Luthor’s crimes, so when Alex wasn’t bullshitting the DEO shrink about how well she was coping, she was working with a team of analysts to go through records.

She was also in charge of testing the evidence that had been gathered from Luthor’s facility, to see if any of the work being done there could lead to answers in other suspicious happenings in National City. So, she was exhausted, couldn’t keep her thoughts organized. Or, that’s what she told herself. She was sitting at her bench, waiting for mass spec results on the latest batch of goo scraped out of a vial. And she kept flashing back to the sight of that cop in the courtroom. Alex didn’t know her name – she clearly hadn’t been the kind of person they were looking for – but she would recognize her anywhere from now on. Something about the woman had just been so...memorable. Her long, dark hair, pulled back into a tight bun, stitches visible where the hair had been shaved. Her arm in a sling. The fading bruises and healing burns on her face and hands. The glint of those dark, dark eyes as she stared, jaw set, at Lex Luthor. The crisp NCPD uniform and black armband. Alex remembered every detail, and each time her mind dragged her back to that moment, she felt a knot grow tighter in her chest.

The beeping of the mass spec startled her out of another flashback to the present, and she moved to the machine, practiced fingers lifting out the sample and keying in commands to compare the results to known samples in the database. Another chirp, this time from her computer, alerted her to a match. She didn’t recognize the chemical signature right away, but it was a dead ringer for some trace that they’d collected at a series of strange break-ins a few months prior. Alex sighed, took a swig of her now-cold coffee, and pulled up the necessary case files; it looked like it would be a long night.

***

It had been six months since the Luthor trial, and Alex almost missed those long nights of investigation. The DEO had definitely confirmed the existence of at least one accomplice to Luthor’s crimes, but so far they hadn’t even gotten close to definite names or locations. But Alex had felt like she was doing a good job, like she was making a difference in finding true justice for the team members she’d lost.

Now, as she stared at her sister pacing in a tiny DEO holding cell, she only felt like a fraud and a failure. Her whole career in the DEO felt like a lie now; Hank had always known that her sister was an alien, a “super”. She wasn’t special, she wasn’t recruited on her own merit. She was just another way to get to Kara.

Kara stopped moving and turned toward Alex, but Alex couldn’t bear to hear anything she had to say.

“No, Kara. Just, just don’t. I never wanted this to happen. I just wanted something that was mine.”

Her throat hurt from holding back her emotions, so she didn’t say anything else. She reached for the door, but it opened before she even touched the handle. Hank stared back at her, something like regret flickering in his eyes, but she pushed past him and strode down the hall. Let him deal with Kara now.

* * *

 

Kara hadn’t really thought about what it would mean to use her powers. She had simply acted as soon as she saw the plane – Alex’s plane – was in trouble. Alex was practically Kara’s whole world. She was the first person who had really tried to understand Kara, to teach her how to live on Earth.

And it had felt so good to fly again, to help someone for real. Sure, she liked her job at CatCo – Ms. Grant was an exacting boss, but it felt so worth it when Kara was able to anticipate her needs, make her day go a little more smoothly. Yet she knew that even being the most perfect assistant in the world wouldn’t _really_ make a difference for the better. She saw how much good Kal did in Metropolis, and, although she’d never admit it out loud, she always felt a little twinge of jealousy when he was on the news. It felt wrong to have these powers and _not_ use them to help people, and so what if she got a little of the spotlight in return?

She was sort of regretting her actions now. The look on Alex’s face and the catch in her voice didn’t require super-senses to interpret. Kara had invaded a part of Alex’s life that she’d wanted to keep private, and Kara got it, she did. Ever since Kara had literally fallen from the stars, Alex had fought to keep up, to carve a little place for herself in a world that Kara had apparently torn from her in an instant. And now that was gone, because once again, clumsy Kara had just bumbled right in.

Kara scrunched her eyes closed. “Fuck,” she muttered quietly.

The sound of a shoe scuffing the floor startled her and her eyes flew open to land on a tall, powerfully-built man. He looked familiar, somehow, but she couldn’t place him right away. She’d remember eventually, though; she always did, her early Kryptonian etiquette training ensuring that she never forgot a face. Misremembering someone could be socially devastating, and Kara had been almost ready to take on her full duties as part of the Science Guild before Krypton’s destruction. Even her extreme youth wouldn’t have excused such a breach of manners. So, she set part of her mind to recalling where she’d seen this man before and focused the rest of her attention on her present situation.

“So, Supergirl. Or, rather, Kara Danvers. This is the DEO. We are responsible for monitoring extraterrestrial activities on Earth, and so, by extension, we are responsible for dealing with you. You have three choices here, so think carefully. First, we are well within our rights to simply hold you here indefinitely. If you don’t want to cooperate with us, you’ll stay here. If you don’t want to stay here, we can let you out and leave you alone, as long as you wear a Kryptonite bracelet, so you cannot use your powers. If you don’t want to wear Kryptonite, you can work with us. Alex will be your handler. You will help us protect national city from extraterrestrials. So. What do you choose?”

Kara glared at him, but her choice is clear. “I’ll work with the DEO.” Now, she can only hope that Alex will forgive her continued intrusion.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, please let me know what you think, either with kudos or comments. (If you've already left kudos, even something like a smiley face or an exclamation point in the comments would make me so happy!) 
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that I added some new tags to this work. The way this story is developing, I'll be loosely following canon events, but I want all these ladies to meet each other soon. So, it may be that they end up interacting much sooner in this story than they did in canon.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get a little more of Lena and Maggie in this chapter. Lena is doing her best to clean up Lex's mess. And Maggie is trying to get to the bottom of several other messes in National City.

The work was never-ending. Lena thought she had been busy before, back at MIT, but this, this whole CEO thing, was another level entirely. She was glad, now, that she hadn’t gone to Lex’s trial. It was easier to disavow his actions that way, without the media having pictures and video clips to scrutinize. And she did – she hated what he’d done. But she also mourned the loss of the brother she had known. In any case, she had too much going on to focus on her feelings. Now, she was preparing for her first official press conference after the trial. Getting the tone right would be crucial, both to avoid alienating current investors and to try to attract new confidence to the Luthor name.

She’d moved to National City permanently now, to oversee the changes that she had been making, and to start the process of repositioning the company. The West Coast symbolized a fresh outlook for LuthorCorp – or rather, the soon-to-be L Corp – and sun-drenched National City would hopefully shine some light on the activities of the company and its CEO, both figuratively and literally. The press conference (was it really happening next week?) would be her chance to publicly distance herself from Lex in the form of rebranding, rebuilding, and repairing. She would do it. She would be good. The words of her speech blurred in front of her as her breath shortened. She had to do it. A sudden, sharp pain brought the world back in bright clarity, and she looked down to see a drop of blood, and then another, staining the crisp paper. On each hand, four angry crescent-shaped cuts marked her palms. She hadn’t even realized she’d been clenching her fists.

* * *

 

Maggie’s hands ached, her breath coming in hard pants as she stepped back from the heavy bag. Recovery had been rough, and she had chafed on desk duty as her injuries healed. A burning restlessness weighed heavy in her gut, the desire to be out there helping people at odds with the very real limitations of her body. It had taken more than the two weeks she’d budgeted for the burns, the bruises, and the stitches to heal. To say nothing of how difficult it had been to convince the psych that no, _really,_ she was _fine._ But now she was back, trying to regain her strength and stamina so that she wouldn’t be a burden on her partner out in the field. She walked over to the bench and grabbed her towel to wipe some of the trickling sweat off her face. A moment to rest, a quick gulp of water, and she’d start again.

***

She had good reason to be grateful for her grueling workout regimen a few days later; it was thanks to her discipline that she had the stamina needed for what was currently afoot. She and the rest of the department had been thrown into a particularly thorny investigation, or, more accurately, a series of investigations. More and more dead aliens were being discovered each day, their bodies discarded like so much trash in alleys, abandoned buildings, and stripped-down cars. None had died peacefully or naturally; the bruises, cuts, broken bones, and, in some cases, scars of varying ages, bore testament to that. She’d spent the last three days following endless, tenuous, dead-end leads. Most of the victims were alone in National City, no families or friends to worry about them. No one to tell her who they were, when they had last been seen alive. So many nameless faces. She barely slept, pulling double shifts and then heading to the alien bar to question the patrons again, again, again; the extraterrestrial population was, unsurprisingly, more active at night, when those who couldn’t pass as human felt safe enough to venture out.

Not all of her colleagues were as passionate about these cases, she knew. But she would never forget how it had felt to be unwelcome in her own town – her own _home_. In her own way, she was trying to make sure that no one ever felt as she had, like a monster. And that meant working until she found out who the real monster was.

So, it was not really a coincidence that she was just around the corner when President Marsdin was attacked. She had heard the mutterings in the streets and in the bar. Tensions between humans and aliens were rising, and the president’s new decree was, well, _controversial_. The latest body had been dumped in one of the smaller, private hangars at National City International Airport, and she _may_ have been hoping to catch a glimpse of Airforce One anyway. The noise of the huge crowd waiting for the president’s arrival was jubilant, and the roar of the large jet overhead as it came in for a landing only momentarily drowned out the cheering. Maggie was poking around behind a mishmash of tools and stained coveralls when she heard the happy cheers turn to screams of terror. Rushing outside, she looked in the direction of the ruckus, just in time to see Supergirl crash into the air traffic control tower. Without stopping to think, she checked that her weapon was within easy reach, shouted for backup into her walkie-talkie, and sprinted towards whatever was happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I was definitely getting a little impatient with the timeline in this story, so I've compressed canon significantly. Also, many apologies for such a long wait, and thank you so much to those of you who have stuck around. My only excuse is that I've been swamped with the last chapter of my dissertation and my two (soon to be only one, thank goodness) jobs. Of course, my hand injuries are also still killing me, because nothing is easy. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you're looking forward to the next.


End file.
